Chapter 15
A FAMILY TREE
The hefty parchment doesn’t want to stay flat. The bottom half keeps curling up into a roll. So, with Stevie Nicks playing in the background, we bring the document to an old drafting table, where we force it into submission.
I set The Great Gatsby on its top edge, The Maltese Falcon on the bottom, and take in the familiar family crest and the elegant handwriting.
Bold flourishes and graceful loops, the ink faded to a rusty-brown.
Further down, the handwriting changes to something more utilitarian, but with the same measured care.
Jude brushes his finger over the spot.
The missing name is surrounded by other Vandenbergs whose identities remain intact.
The scorch mark had a wife and three children, one of whom was Isaiah, the original author of the tree.
I take in the brittle hole with its charred edges, an open wound in the family’s past, and wonder why.
What offense would erase a person so violently?
I do a quick count of the generations descending from Ezra’s line. There are eight including himself, with Simon and Lily—the teenage siblings from the cold case—at the bottom. On Raphael’s side, I count only three, each one with increasingly less information.
A symptom of Ezra and Raphael’s long-standing enmity, perhaps?
Or maybe it’s simply the natural fallout of so much distance, for at some point in time, Raphael moved to Winchester, England, where he married, had children, and died.
Whatever the reason, the original author of the tree stopped keeping track of Raphael’s lineage.
Under the third generation, a foursome of disconnected names is scrawled in Enoch’s hand.
A question mark follows each one, as if he knew of their existence, but didn’t know where to place them.
Three of the four set off a chorus of bells in my mind.
“Lucian. Reuben. Frank. Thomas,” I read.
Jude looks at me.
“The tip your grandfather gave to the police. He said to look into a cousin named Thomas, Reuben, or Frank.” I point to each name in turn, because here they are.
Thomas, Reuben, and Frank. Vandenberg men on Raphael’s side of the family. I want to park here, discuss this, but Jude has already moved on, his gaze fixed on another.
Marcus Vandenberg, of the eighth generation.
Born, 1966 in Philadelphia. There’s nothing about either of his marriages—not to Jude’s mother, or Isabel after her.
Enoch must have passed away before Marcus’s first marriage, but after the disappearance of John, Maureen, Simon, and Lily, because their information is recorded.
Presumed dead: 1995.
Stevie Knicks stops singing.
Her voice had been unobtrusive in the background. Now, there’s nothing but the soft crackle of the needle as it drags through a vacant groove, along with the creaks and groans of a house too big to settle.
“We should get back to looking for the key,” Jude says, leaving the family tree behind, stretched wide between The Great Gatsby and The Maltese Falcon.
He opens a different trunk.
As discreetly as possible, I snap a picture with my phone. I can’t help myself. I have to show Twig.
We search for an hour more before I receive a text message from Dad.
School night, kiddo. Whatever you’re doing, time to wrap it up.
The key is nowhere to be found.
Jude grabs a bobby pin from one of the apothecary drawers and, despite my objections, tries to pick the book’s lock. When the lock refuses to budge and he suggests we bust it open, I put my foot down. “I have to return this in the same condition or Maggie will murder me in my sleep.”
“Don’t you want to see what’s inside?”
“Of course, but not if it means incurring Maggie’s wrath.
” Or losing my job. I slide my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, thinking quickly.
Perhaps, a little desperately. Our lunchtime conversation, when Jude all but ordered a cease and desist on our search for answers, has me spooked.
Whatever headspace he was in then, I don’t want him going back there now.
“What about the sketch of Molly?” I ask.
“What about it?” he replies.
“She has to be connected to the portrait in some way, right? Why else would the same symbol be on both of them? We have her name, and a general time period of when she lived.” If Ezra sketched her, she had to have been alive when Ezra was alive.
“If anyone would know anything about a young woman named Molly living here in the 1700s, it’ll be Maggie.
And maybe, if we find Molly, we’ll learn more about the portrait, too. ”
I walk in the door with The Great Gatsby in hand, on loan from Jude. I close the screen door quietly behind me and muffle a sneeze. On the walk home, I was struck by a string of them. Perhaps wearing that dusty cloak for so long wasn’t the smartest idea.
Inside, Dad is stretched out on the recliner.
A Seinfeld rerun plays on the television.
There’s an open can of Coors Light on the end table.
I can tell from here that he’s fallen asleep.
A fairly common occurrence. All that manual labor makes him tired, but he refuses to retire to his room when I’m still out.
His bed—he likes to say—is only for sleeping when he knows I’m in mine.
I tiptoe closer.
His dark hair is still damp from his shower.
His skin is a deep tan from days spent outdoors, grooved with deeper lines than most guys his age thanks to all that sun.
And probably my mother. My attention moves to his left hand.
He still wears his wedding ring, even all these years later.
I pick up the beer can, which is half-full.
He only ever has one, and usually forgets to finish it.
I dump the remainder down the drain and put the can in the recycling, then grab a blanket off the couch.
I’m just about to cover him when I’m overcome by another sneeze—so suddenly, I have no chance to muffle it.
And I am a notoriously loud sneezer.
Dad opens his eyes.
“Hey,” he says in a crackly voice. “How was your day?”
“Good. Yours?”
“My day was good.”
We nod in unison, as if to say glad to hear it.
“Want me to shut off the TV?” I ask.
“That’s all right. I’m gonna finish this episode, then head up to bed.”
I’m not fooled. Dad wasn’t watching Seinfeld.
He was pretending to watch Seinfeld so he could wait up for me.
He’s a good man, my dad. Quiet. Hardworking.
As patient as the day is long. A walking green flag, really.
I glance again at his wedding ring. In all my years, I’ve never heard him say one negative thing about Mom.
And in all my memories of her, she never said one negative thing about him, either.
In fact, she used to tell me he was the one thing she got right. The one thing she was proud to give me.
A really great dad.
I kiss the top of his head. “Night, Pops.”
Upstairs, I brush my teeth and wash my face.
I change into an oversized t-shirt and pajama bottoms, then settle into my window seat with The Great Gatsby in my lap, gazing at Jude’s illuminated bedroom window when movement below catches my attention.
A figure, prowling around the side of the home.
I narrow my eyes, trying to get a better look, but everything is dark and foggy and another sneeze grabs hold, followed by two more.
In their wake, I’m struck by a bout of dizziness. The kind you get when you stand up too fast, only I’m not standing, and my neck is suddenly warm. I unlock the window and push it open, inviting in the crisp night air, fanning the collar of my shirt as I refocus my attention. But I find nothing.
Did I imagine it?
My phone dings with a message from Twig, asking how everything went.
I send him the picture I took of Jude’s family tree, along with a reply:
Look what we found in an old trunk!
A few seconds later, he texts back.
Twig: Frank, Reuben, and Thomas?
Me: IKR!?
I pull up the picture and zoom in on the names. A connection to the cold case, stumbled upon in a search for answers about a portrait of me. Two confounding mysteries.
My phone dings.
Twig: Scorch mark is intense. Who got annexed?
Me: No idea.
There’s a beat of nothing, then a scrolling ellipse.
Twig: What happened in 1890?
Unsure what he’s talking about, I look at the picture.
I zoom in, studying the dates—really having to focus, too, like I’m in sudden need of reading glasses.
I find the date in question. 1890, listed several times over.
A year of death. Whatever happened wiped out every Vandenberg alive at the time except for the author of the tree, Isaiah.
Unless, of course, his scorch-mark of a father was still alive.
My phone dings.
Twig: And 1930?
I search some more and find a second shared death. This time, only two. Isaiah and his wife both died in 1930.
Ding.
Twig sent an image. A screen shot of a Wikipedia page.
Railway accidents from the 19th century.
To make things extra clear, he highlighted one in particular.
April 1890, a train derails en route to New York, killing dozens, including several members of the prominent Vandenberg family of Foggy Hollow, WV.
Ding.
Twig: Can’t find anything about 1930.
Ding.
Twig: Selah.
Me: What??
Twig: 1832 … Ruth Vandenberg
I stare at the name, unable to believe I missed it until now.
Ruth Vandenberg was featured in Episode 8: Cryptid Craze.
And here she is, listed on Jude’s family tree.
I didn’t notice her because she hardly takes up any space at all.
She’s nothing but a side note. Now that I really look, all the Vandenberg daughters are side notes.
None of them are listed as married with children.
Each of them died at a tragically young age, including Ruth Vandenberg in 1832.
She perished alongside her friend, Violet Underwagon.
The two girls were found dead in the woods.
Mauled to death by a wild animal, or was it the Nachtdier?
I try to focus on my phone screen, to find something about Isaiah and his wife’s death in 1930, but the search results keep blurring in and out of focus. I no longer feel warm. I feel cold. And clammy.
I shut the window and shoot Twig a text.
Chat 2morrow
I shut off my phone before he responds and crawl into bed and under the covers. With my teeth chattering, I fall into a fitful sleep.